


Pumpkins in the Garden

by Solitarysynonym



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Alternate Universe - Wizards, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitarysynonym/pseuds/Solitarysynonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxy, a wizard without roots, wanders the world with her black cat until one day she comes across a cottage in the woods surrounded by pumpkins and a witch with a green thumb and greener eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pumpkins in the Garden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brinnsprite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnsprite/gifts).



> Part of Ladypalooza 2015!
> 
> Prompt: Wizards and witches AU. Dog and cat familiars. Something light and fluffy. Join me in rarepair hell.

Roxy awoke to a weight on her chest making it hard to breathe. Soft paws patted her face. She groaned, trying to push Frigglish off. 

“Frigglish for frigg’s sake you’re heavy!! Get off!!”

The black cat lying on her chest blinked slowly before licking his paw, heavier than his small form should be, but then again he was a magic cat. 

“Frigglisssshhhhhhhhh,” Roxy complained, trying to push him off again despite knowing that he was using both anchoring and weight spells to keep himself in place. 

Frigglish paused his grooming to give her a smug look. “You know it’s witches who have black cats usually,” Frigglish said primly, yawning as her attempts to lift him failed. 

“But I like cats better than snakes or lizards,” Roxy sighed, ceasing her efforts to push Frigglish off. She could feel his spells but she preferred not to meddle with them. He could sulk amazingly and would refuse to speak with her for days after she did so. She dropped her arm dramatically over her eyes. “Even if it means I will perish here beneath a magically-heavy cat butt.”

She could feel his bemused stare for long moments before a fish-scented sigh was followed by the cessation of the anchor and weight spells and at last she could breathe easier. He hopped off of her chest and she sat up with a grin. 

“Where shall we go today?” she asked, glancing around at her windows. Her room had no door, but it didn’t need one. She specialized in transport spells and each window showed a different place. 

Frigglish hopped up onto the sill of one of the windows, pawing the magical glass behind which a dense forest stood. “I want to sharpen my claws on some bark,” he said. “And not be knee deep in snow.” 

Roxy laughed and pulled on her bright pink robes. “But snow lets me wear my stripey scarf! You know how I love my stripey scarf!”

Frigglish put his ears back and pushed against the window. She grinned and picked up her staff. She tapped the head against the window which swung wide to admit the green smells of a forest in the summer. Frigglish immediately hopped down outside, leaving Roxy to scramble over the sill and out. 

The window hung in midair, giving a view of her room. She tapped it with the head of her staff from the outside and it vanished. With a grin, Roxy followed Frigglish into the forest, ready for adventure. 

\----

Roxy hiked briskly through the trees, using her staff occasionally for balance as they picked their way across streams and over fallen trees. They explored somewhere different every day, sometimes working on spells but mostly just wandering. She had spent more than a year setting up her room and it made travel much more comfortable when she could go home every night, even if home was tucked between dimensions. Her tutor had been horrified with how easy she found it to pass from one place to another and eventually kicked her out, calling her unnatural. (He had also not approved of Frigglish, saying that wizards were not supposed to have black cats. Overall she was much happier away from his narrow-minded tutelage.) So now Roxy wandered, picking up skills as she went and seeing just how much of the world she could see with her own two eyes. 

Frigglish was enjoying pouncing on flowers when Roxy first smelled it: a telltale whiff of roasting meat over the heady scent of growing things and rich earth. 

“Do you smell that?” Roxy asked. 

“Smell what?” Frigglish replied, his rump wiggling as he watched a leaf drift groundward. 

“The fire and cooking smell,” she said, watching him pounce the leaf once it came in range and shred it with his teeth and claws. 

“Yes. So?” Frigglish asked when he was done with his hunt.

“So I want to see where it’s coming from!” she said, sniffing the air again and heading in the direction from which the wind was blowing. 

“How do we know the cooker is friendly?” Frigglish asked, bounding after her. 

“I’m a wizard, Frigglish, we’ll be fine.” 

\----

Roxy was beginning to regret her confidence as the trees thinned out and she finally got a good look at the snug little cottage with smoke rising from the chimney and surrounded by positively massive….

“Are those.. pumpkins?” she asked, halting in the shade of the trees and gazing out over a field of pumpkins, some of which dwarfed the cottage. She exhaled in amazement at the sheer scope of the things. 

Frigglish growled low in his throat, glaring at the cottage and Roxy pulled her attention away from the behemoth gourds to see a massive fluffy white dog gnawing glowing green meat off of a bone. Its ears pricked up when Frigglish growled and it sprang to its feet, tail lifted as it sniffed the air. 

“Um..” was all Roxy had time to say before the dog barrelled toward them, barking an alarm. Frigglish yowled and hopped up onto Roxy’s shoulder, arching and hissing as the dog skidded to a half just out of arm’s reach, barking and wagging its tail, its ears pricked forward and tongue lolling. 

Roxy shrank back against the tree, trying to stay calm while faced with a dog whose shoulder was as high as her hip. She gripped her staff tighter, preparing to make her escape. 

“Bec! Come!” a musical voice called out followed by a loud whistle. Roxy turned back toward the cottage as the dog obediently trotted to the feet of a tall girl in a black dress. Round glasses gleamed on her nose and she wore a pointed black hat. Roxy’s jaw dropped when the girl grinned at her. “Would you like some tea?” the black-haired girl called. 

Frigglish had to dig in his claws to shake Roxy out of her reverie. “Um yes please,” Roxy said, pushing away from the shelter of the forest and walking down the path between the pumpkins. The furry white guardian returned to its meal as the girl ushered Roxy and Frigglish inside. 

“Are you a wizard?” the girl asked point blank when Roxy carefully leaned her staff against the coat rack. “I haven’t seen a wizard with a cat before.” 

“I’m better than a snake,” Frigglish said pointedly, jumping from Roxy’s shoulder to the top of a nearby shelf to investigate several jars. 

“Frigglish be polite!” Roxy scolded, then smiled sheepishly. “Um yes, I’m Roxy. And you are…?”

“Jade,” Jade said in reply, her green eyes amused. “And I’m a witch.” She said, gesturing to her pointed hat. 

Roxy glanced around the crowded room, full of hanging herbs and bottles and jars, with vines stretching in through the windows. “Your pumpkins are massive,” she blurted out. 

Jade giggled and Roxy blushed. “I mean it’s amazing how large you’ve been able to grow them! What do you use?” 

“Why don’t you sit down for tea and we can compare notes,” Jade said cheerfully. 

\----

Jade, as it turned out, had come to live away from people in a secluded place where she could grow her plants in peace. Her magical garden had upset the townsfolk where she had grown up and adopting the massive Becquerel as a puppy who seemed unlikely to stop growing had been the final straw. Her goal was to breed new magical plants, but so far her best success lay with pumpkins. 

“I never considered keeping a garden,” Roxy mused as she helped Jade weed a week later. “There’s something very pleasant about yours.”

“Feel free to stay as long as you like!” Jade said cheerfully. “It’s nice to have the company. Becquerel is an excellent companion, but he does lack in the conversation department.”

“Frigglish is sometimes TOO talkative,” Roxy confided under her breath. Frigglish was napping on the roof for the moment, out of earshot. 

Jade giggled and Roxy admired the freckles on her cheeks. 

\----

Pumpkins, as it turned out, were excellent void anchors. Using some of Jade’s finest specimens, Roxy was able to jump farther than ever before, bringing back seeds and plants from exotic locales and expanding the garden. Jade was thrilled with the possibilities and together they began to build a green house for further experimentation. 

“You know they say witches and wizards don’t get along,” Roxy commented as she held a wooden support in place until Jade could hammer the cross piece to it. 

“They also say all witches have black cats,” Jade teased, glancing pointedly over at where Bec and Frigglish were playing an elaborate game of tag, dodging around the pumpkins and wreaking merry havoc in the garden. 

Roxy laughed and braced herself against Jade’s hammering.

\----

Roxy rarely used her window-filled room anymore. Jade had invited her to sleep over one night and soon it was every night. Roxy stared at the ceiling, Jade’s slow sleepy breathing warm on her neck and realized she’d been here for more than a year but had never felt the panicky claustrophobia that had led her to travel in the first place.

“Do you miss wandering, Frigglish?” she said softly.

Frigglish lifted his head from where he was curled up against Bec. They had long since made peace. “Do you?” he asked. 

Jade mumbled in her sleep and cuddled closer and Roxy closed her eyes, smiling.


End file.
